What do former President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter and current Texas Governor James Richard “Rick” Perry have in common?Â

Well, they’re both Protestants although Carter is a Baptist and Perry a Methodist.Â They’re both from the South, although Carter was a Deep Souther and Perry is a Southwesterner.Â They both served in the military, Carter in the Navy as a lieutenant, Perry in the Air ForceÂ as a captain.Â They have both been married to the same woman for a gazillion years.Â

As for their differences, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize andÂ was a failed president and is a bigger failure in his quest for a decent legacy in his post-presidency.Â Carter is an unreconstructed liberal and Perry a committed conservative.Â Perry has been a wildly popular, successful three term governor, and he terrifies Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrats because he represents everything Obama isn’t and threatens everything they have wrought for the past 31 months.Â

They needn’t fear Perry since, as of now, he hasn’t declared for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2012.Â

Nevertheless, true to form and recent tradition, Perry has already been the object of pre-emptive attacks by Obama’s hatchet men (and women) in the mainstream media on virtually every issue he has supported and for every value to which he subscribes.Â

A pro-life, fiscal and social conservative Christian, Perry opposes same-sex marriage, all ofÂ which positions would be considered more than sufficientÂ reasonsÂ to arouse the ire of America’s pro-abortion, pro-taxation, pro-atheistic, anti-Christian Left.Â He compounds that ire by supporting the State of Israel, a policy anathema to liberals who favor Palestinian rights and all things Muslim.Â

Â Â Demonstrating an amazing hypocrisy, the Left has gone so far as to ridicule Perry based on his less than stellar undergraduateÂ grades at Texas A&M.Â His transcripts were somehowÂ obtained by one of Obama’s staunchest lackeys, the HuffingtonPost.com viaÂ an unnamed source and reputedly show he had a number of “C” and “D” grades, in addition to a few “A’s.”Â

HuffPo made no reference in its story on Perry’s grades toÂ Obama’s refusal to disclose his Columbia UniversityÂ transcripts but did find space to print a conveniently-unsubstantiated comment by another–or the same?–source who allegedly said of Perry, “This was not the brightest guy around.Â We always kind of laughed.Â He was always kind of a joke.”Â (http://huff.to/qXGesb)Â Â Â Â Â

Perry hasÂ also been criticized for switching political parties.Â He was originally a Democrat and switched to Republican apparently for the same reason Ronald Reagan did.Â As Reagan once said, he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it left him.Â That puts Rick Perry in excellent company.Â

However, what sticks in the liberal craw mostÂ and will no doubt be their prime future focus should he choose to run next yearÂ are not his political, social, or fiscal views, his previous party affiliation or grades.Â Rather, his adamantly-Christian religious views which he proudly wears on his sleeve and publicly professes from the podium will be used in an attempt to disqualify him.Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

Â Â Religion, that element of one’s life whichÂ Americans learned in 1960 was irrelevant,Â is evolving intoÂ the major issue with liberals who have little else to use to beat Perry.

With JFK, libs and others balked at his professed Catholicism but eventually accepted that the Pope wouldn’t move into the White House on his inauguration day.Â Having retrogressed into a whole other breed by the time of BHO, they didn’t give a flying figÂ what Obama believed or didn’t believe or what he did or didn’t do at Columbia.Â

He was their man, their boy, by 2008 even if he couldn’t walk on water which many of them still think he can.Â

Rick Perry is aÂ candidate of a whole different color, however, than JFK, Carter, or Obama, no pun intended.Â

From all reports, Perry not only doesn’t bed celebs like Kennedy, doesn’t lust in his heart like Carter,Â and doesn’t liveÂ la dolce vita, like Obama dreams of.Â He may not have excelled at Texas A&M but he has excelled in his governorship and, most grievously, he has proudly professedÂ that old timeÂ Christian religion.Â

Desperately seeking a smelly albatross to hang aroundÂ Perry’s neck, and give fodder for Letterman and Leno to carry out the Democrat agenda withÂ their sniping,Â the Left now has its target in sight: Rick Perry as religious extremist.Â Â Â Â Â

On Saturday, Perry gave them all the fodder, all the ammunition, all the phony bases for calumnious character assassinationÂ they could ever need when he addressed an audience of someÂ 20-30,000 at a meeting in Houston’s Reliant Stadium, a very public conclave calledÂ because of America’s time of crisis.Â Â

Perry spoke of God.Â He spoke of our crippling recession.Â He spoke of national discord and fear and anger and suffering and dysfunctional government but primarily he spoke about God and of the neccessity of a renewal of faith in HimÂ through prayer.Â Â

HuffPo, Politico.com, and the rest of the liberal MSM construed Perry’s rousingÂ speech as prefatory to an imminent announcement that he will take on Obama in 2012 which, God willing, it may very well have been.Â

HuffPo found it a requisite to toss in a few brickbats such as a comment by a local pastor that “The brand of Christianity being offered today is one of fear, and we want to let people know that God loves everyone, not to be afraid.”Â Politico felt compelled to mention that Pastor John Hagee, who had disparaged Catholics in 2008, was in attendance.Â If that’s all they got, if the Left is reduced to carping and stirring up inconsequentials to bring down Rick Perry, he just may win next year!Â If he runs.Â Â Â